Magical Conversations
by Poison'd
Summary: One shot. Yugi comes home from school and the storm outside cuts the power of his home. Amoungst this unfortunate circumstance, Yugi's computer remains online. How can that be?


I decided to do a piece on a character who I'm not even that fond of… Weird, huh? Oh well, let's think of it as a sort of tribute to Pandora, shall we? After all, it's a character builder for him (who knows maybe more people will like him now?). This one shot is not meant to be a yaoi one like my last, but it sure can be taken that way. It's not intended though, since the coupling makes me sick… This tribute came about due to my ownership of Volume 12 in which Dark Magician first proves that the Heart of the Cards is real— and that there may be more to him than JUST a card.

Okay, I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! because if I did I'd have other people write the fanfic for me! Just kidding, I'd write them myself but then you would never know it was me… Sorry, that was a tangent. Kazuki Takehashi owns Yu-Gi-Oh!, something for which many fans are happy for.

Also, if you'd be kind enough to review, I'd be soooo happy. I don't like this piece at all, so if you want to tear it to pieces: be my guest, if you want to give me comments to help me improve: be my guest. And thank you to all who read this and all who comment.

* * *

**Magical Conversations**

Yugi threw his backpack onto the bed and it fell lazily onto its side. The nicely made sheets, courtesy of his mother, crinkled in disturbance of the room's prior solitude. Yugi ignored the complaint and plopped down onto a chair in front of a monitor.

Bending over, Yugi pressed a button and a soft whir filled the room a split second after. Yugi eyed the monitor appreciatively. He had gotten the computer as a birthday gift from Tea, who had recently been upgraded to a laptop. She told him she didn't want a perfectly fine computer to go to waste and she knew he needed one, so… Now Yugi had a computer.

Yugi tapped in the password and hit the enter key. He'd been on the computer every day since he first got it. There was always something new on the internet! Sure, he'd been on the internet before in the library, but this was NEW! He'd never had time to check his emails and now he had multiple messages from Tea, junk mail from Joey and Tristan, and a study group invitation from Ryou.

Joey however had been the one to introduce him to AIM. The instant communication at his fingertips— he had no idea why no one else was as fascinated by these little miracles.

The AIM screen popped up and Yugi typed in his username and password. Instantly the little pop up loaded his buddy list and Yugi laughed to himself. He should've known Joey would be on and if he waited…

BING!

"Hello Yugi," the message read. Yugi laughed. Joey never failed to strike up a conversation as soon as Yugi signed on.

"Hi Joey," Yugi clicked away, "How are you?"

"Good, Yug. Thanks for asking. And you?"

"Oh, I'm fine. Just finished history."

"Really?"

"I haven't yet… I need help. Did you understand problem 3 on the homework?"

"That's what you get for sleeping during class. Umm… hold on. Let me get my homework from my bag." Yugi got up and heard the computer ring with Joey's gratitude. He pulled his backpack towards him and flipped through it until he found his ragged, blue binder. He let the backpack fall as he surveyed the outdoors.

It was raining hard outside. The darkened sky held fat, angry clouds lightened occasionally by thunder. Luckily, Yugi had just made it home before the light drizzle had given way to its angry counterpart. A bolt split the sky and the lights in Yugi's room flickered out and died. A scream of shock downstairs told him that the rest of the house had lost power too. Only… something felt off to him.

Yugi had come to dislike the feeling. Every time he had **THAT** feeling something weird happened to him and, in his life, weird was nothing to crave. Then it hit Yugi why he had a strange feeling: Even though all the power had shut off in his house there was a blue glow being thrown against the wall. Yugi slowly turned around and prayed _REALLY_ hard that nothing was going to happen to him.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Yugi realized it was just his monitor. He felt silly for— _wait, didn't the monitor run off of power too!? _Yugi was lost in confusion, but he walked over to the computer anyways and took a seat. It was just a blue screen looking back at him. His heart still racing slightly, Yugi touched the mouse wondering if anything bad had just happened to his computer. The computer buzzed loudly for a minute and Yugi pondered about what was going on.

Then the noise died and Yugi was left with the same blue screen. Oh, how he hoped he didn't just kill the computer. Yugi sighed. What would he tell Tea?

A noise broke the silence and Yugi pulled his face from his hands and stared at the computer screen. A single name had appeared: UltimateArchMage. The format looked like an AIM conversation, but Yugi couldn't exit out of it no matter what he did; Esc, Ctrl+Alt+Delete, nothing.

Yugi wondered who the user could be. It obviously had to be someone with some sort of powers or maybe it _was_ just the storm. But still Yugi doubted it. A single message appeared on the screen: "Hello?"

Yugi stared at it for a moment. If his computer wasn't responding, then it most certainly wasn't going to respond to him typing at the keyboard. And yet, almost magically, he found himself typing on the thing anyways. "Hello, who is this?"

The familiar username of DarkMagician popped up with the message as soon as Yugi hit enter. He jumped slightly in shock, but he did expect something to be amiss here.

"I wanted to know the very same thing."

"This is…" Yugi paused, _should he be telling a stranger his name?_ "Yugi, Yugi Mouto." _It couldn't hurt._

"Well, I haven't heard that name in a long time. Are you dead too?"

_WHAT!?!_ Yugi hopped out of his chair and stared at the computer screen in horror. The chair fell with a soft clunk and Yugi bent down on his knees in front of the screen. He could hear his mother calling out to make sure he was okay. "Fine, Mom!"

"Who is this?" Yugi typed back shakily.

"Pandora."

Yugi sighed in relief. Pandora had just scared the daylights out of him. "Don't do that!"

"Do what?"

"Scare me. How have you been? And more importantly, how did you get my username?" Yugi felt a small tug at his heart and he turned his face to the right. He noticed the Spirit of the Puzzle sitting on his bed, staring gravely at him.

//You don't have to talk to him, aibou.//

/I know, Pharaoh, but I want to/ Yugi could sense the mind link break and knew the Spirit was still mad about the duel. Yugi hadn't like the idea that Pandora would sacrifice his cards in order to win either, but no one deserved to die for a game.

"I don't understand. What did I do to scare you?"

"You claimed to be dead. Me and my silly active imagination thought it was true." Yugi added a smile onto his message for good touch and hit enter again.

"No, Yugi, I wasn't kidding. I don't know how this is working either, but somehow you're connected to my thoughts."

Yugi gapped at the reply. There was no logical way to explain this; but then that happened to him quite a bit. He didn't know what to say either. _What do you tell a ghost?_

"I'm sorry." Yugi typed.

"No, don't be." Pandora replied. "I brought it on myself."

"How?" Yugi swallowed, "How did you die?"

"Well, in life, I killed myself. But after dying I learned that Mast— Sorry, old habit— that Malik had stirred up my old suicidal feelings and so…"

"Oh," _Boy, __Yugi__ was really stepping in it today_, "So are you okay?"

"As okay as a ghost can be." Yugi laughed at this, but then covered his mouth. Even though Pandora wasn't there, Yugi felt he'd been laughing at something inappropriate; a gift all teenagers seemed to acquire. "It's a good thing." Pandora added after Yugi didn't respond.

"Oh, okay," Yugi began, "So—"

"Look, I just wanted to apologize."

Yugi erased what he'd been typing and started again, "For what?"

"For that duel. I've been thinking about it a lot. I was severely in the wrong and I'm sorry to both you, yours and my Dark Magician…" Yugi lay his hands gently on the keys. He wasn't sure what to say in response. Of course, Yugi forgave him for it, but he didn't think he should be answering that. Yugi heard clicking and noticed his hands moving on their own.

"I forgive you, Pandora, and I hope you the best." Yugi smiled, he knew he'd come around. It was a card game after all and Malik had been toying with each of the ghouls' minds.

"Thanks Yugi." _Don't thank me, thank him,_ Yugi thought with a smile. "I want you to have something."

"What?"Yugi typed. _He had no idea what Pandora was planning, but __Yugi__ was sure he couldn't receive anything over the internet. But then, was this really the internet?__ After all, the internet didn't usually connect you into the mind of a dead person. _"But if it's a virus I don't want it."

"Ha ha, no, nothing of the sort. It's actually my deck."

"Your deck?"

"Yes, my deck."

"But… wouldn't you much rather give it to someone else— like in a will?"

"No, you're the true Master of Magicians and I think you should have it."

"I…" Yugi stared at the screen, "How am I supposed to get my hands on that through the internet?"

"Ah! I said you were the Master of Magicians. Certainly you can find it in my room."

"You mean the-"

"The room we dueled in." _That's what he thought._ Yugi began once more.

"Pandora, Dark Magician is the true magician…"

"Oh, I know. But you can find it. I trust you." The response made Yugi slightly smile, "And I have some information for you about Dark Magician."

"Really?"

"BUT I'm not telling you until you come back with my deck."

"How am I supposed to know you won't be gone?"

"I won't." Yugi nodded and stood up. He rubbed his temples as he pulled his jacket from the door knob. He didn't know _HOW_ he'd get out of the house, but he needed to.

* * *

Dashing down the street, Yugi turned a corner and came upon the old building which had once disappeared off of Kaiba's tracking system. He was going to be in so much trouble with his mother when he got home. She hated being ignored and she had told him to come back and he chose to keep going still. She would never believe his reasoning though…

Yugi walked into the larger basement and stared around. He shivered slightly although the air around him was warm. He didn't like the nightmarish look the room had when it had been maintained and now that there was no one there spider webs had filled the spaces. Something squeaked and scampered out of sight when Yugi moved forward and he fell out of fright.

He got up quickly and dusted himself off. At times like this, clenching tightly to the puzzle made him feel so much better and it wasn't going to be any different today. He walked cautiously to the table in the center with the pentagram etched on it. There was no way the deck would be there… Yugi looked around distraught. _Where would he place it if he were Pandora?_

Yugi stared at the ceiling and sighed. The banner hung there loosely above in a four-leaf clover fashion. Perhaps… No, he was far too short to try there anyways. But then that WOULD make it a challenge…

Climbing on the table, Yugi managed to jump and touch the banner briefly. After several attempts of this he successfully pulled the banner down. And, to his great dismay, a big pile of dust rained upon him too. He coughed and hacked before he realized he was falling.

And with a sharp thud, Yugi landed on the table causing it to break. He got up rubbing his back and cussing his luck. First a ghost speaks to him from the computer, then it sends him on a crazy mission saying he knows something about Dark Magician— why was Yugi curious about what he knew anyways? He always had a special connection to the card though, so that wasn't that far of a leap of logic to make.

Yugi looked down at the rubble and grumbled. This mess was certainly going to make it much— Well, what do you know? There laid the cards amoung the ruins.

* * *

"I've got them!" Yugi typed triumphantly on the keyboard.

"Very good. Not many people assume that table has any secret compartments."

"I thought it was too obvious."

"You over thought it."

"Yeah, well, I didn't need to be a magician in the least to figure that out."

"Sure you did. That table doesn't open for many, you know." Yugi wasn't sure whether he bought that, but he didn't see how entertaining Pandora could hurt. Plus, secretly, it kind of amused him too.

"So what do you know about the Dark Magician?"

"Greedy, aren't we?" he chided.

"No, just dying to know."

"It's not about the card in general."

"Hm?"

"It's more about _your_ card. And I can only tell you a bit of it, because I don't think I should even be telling you this."

"Go for it!" Yugi could almost swear he heard Pandora laugh, but he wasn't ashamed in the least about his childish glee.

"Dark Magician is human."

"Well, duh. Haven't you seen the card design?"

"No, _you__r_ Dark Magician used to be a living, breathing person."

"Really?"

"Yes, during Ancient Egypt."

"Oh! Well, Isis told me that! The cards used to be real back then."

"No, Yugi— just trust me: That card is your loyal servant forever. And I now understand our duel completely because of that knowledge." Yugi was really beginning to get tired of being confused.

"I don't suppose you'll explain that better?"

"Nope." And Yugi imagined a smile. "The storm is clearing up. We'll be disconnected, Yugi."

"Oh… Well, I hope the after life treats you better. Good bye, Pandora."

"Good bye, Yugi, and thank you. Good bye, Pharaoh, thank you for your unlimited kindness." The screen went black as soon as Yugi had finished reading the message. He should've realized Pandora would have now known about Yugi's alter ego. He smiled sadly and yawned. Pulling his deck from the puzzle's box, Yugi pulled Dark Magician from the top of the pile and smiled.

"Pandora had some nice things to say about you."


End file.
